Christie leads Buono among likely voters, 56 percent to 36 percent. His advantage is 10 points smaller than it was in a Monmouth/APP Poll in June. Poll director Patrick Murray said the difference is that 36 percent of Democrats backed Christie two months ago, compared with 21 percent now — which he said is still high for a Republican.

“It certainly is significant movement. There’s no question about it. It’s all coming from Democrats though,” Murray said of the shrinking lead. “Buono has been spending all of her time and effort courting her own base and trying to get them back in line. It looks like that is having some success.”

Murray said it’s surprising the political recalibration didn’t happen sooner. Christie retains a huge lead among independents — 64 percent to 23 percent — and even in the heavily Democratic state of New Jersey a Democrat can’t overcome margins like that, he said.

“Now we’re seeing a movement that we thought we’d see earlier in the summer. But the fact that it’s taken Buono this long to get her base back, and she doesn’t even have it totally back yet, doesn’t bode well for the remaining time left in this campaign,” Murray said.

Sixty-three percent of likely voters, including a plurality of Democrats, said it was appropriate for Christie to appear in the ubiquitous Sandy-recovery “Stronger Than The Storm” ads — which 81 percent of voters said they’ve seen on television.

Some voters say they plan to vote for Christie reluctantly because they don’t know anything about Buono, a state senator from Middlesex County. Nearly half of voters had no opinion about her; among those that do, 27 percent had a favorable opinion and 25 percent an unfavorable one.

Murray said that although a 12-point or 15-point win by a Republican in a statewide race in New Jersey would be “an astounding achievement,” the Christie campaign hopes to win by 20 points so the victory can act as a springboard toward the Republican nomination for president in 2016. Nineteen percent of voters said they think Christie definitely plans to run in 2016, and 60 percent said he probably will.

“For the Christie campaign, 20 points is a magic number for them. They really want to get over that 20-point mark in terms of the margin of victory because of 2016,” Murray said. “This poll is indicating that they’re teetering right now on the edge.”

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